Death comes to downtown Ramallah

A few days ago while in a friend’s car for an hour of gridlock at Qalandia checkpoint in the middle of a clash, she made a joke about a reprieve. “Break!” she yelled out the window. But of course everything carried on. I’ve heard this joke before, when participants in a clash want to get a rest. Journalists even manage to get a break. I’ve called out to Palestinian youths to stop throwing stones and to soldiers to put down their guns as I’m moving to a different vantage point, and the sides have honored the request.

Palestinians are unable to call for such a break in 47 years of occupation, so they have buffered themselves in Ramallah: the city of dreams. Its massive construction sites buttressing the main district are both a physical manifestation of Oslo’s successes and failures. Money came in, a state was supposed to be built architecturally modeled after Amman, but instead the most impressive plans, like national roads and basic infrastructure, were never finished.

Three weeks ago this Ramallah bubble—however sturdy it was to begin with—burst. The deaths of the two Palestinian youths killed a few weeks ago outside Ofer prison during a Nakba Day demonstration have proved harder for Ramallah than any other West Bank killing over the past few years. When Nadim Nuwara, 17, and Mohammed Salame, 16, were shot by Israeli forces with live-fire, it sent Ramallah into a gloom. Sometimes killings are a spark for a sea-change, or political stumbling blocks. Yet this time the city and everyone in it that witnessed the deaths wept as if they were biting into a sour fate. These killings were emotional setbacks.

What makes these deaths so much harder is that they hit the epicenter. Nadime attended St. George Orthodox School in an upscale neighborhood with restaurants priced around twice that of any other West Bank city. Moreover, Nadime, a child really, had such a unfair passing. He was stone throwing at a demonstration. Yet from my interviews with medics and journalist present, his stones were bouncing off of the earth far, far from the Israeli army. There was no threat to life, the condition that is required for a soldier to shoot.

But soldiers did shoot, and according to Samer Nazzal a photographer with Raya FM, the army was shooting for an eight-hour block of time. And it wasn’t just Nadime and Mohammed who were shot. One other youth was hit in the chest and was in critical condition for days, and eight more were struck with live-fire in the extremities. A medic who carried Nadime after a bullet entered his back, and exited through his heart, something that rubber bullets do not have the force to do, said Nadime didn’t even survive the 15 seconds that it took to get him to the ambulance. Another medic was shot in the head with a rubber bullet when attempting to remove lethally injured Mohammed from the street.

To Palestinians, this wasn’t a clash. It was an indiscriminate spray of bullets. And so they are reacting like Nadime and Mohammed’s death is their Sandy Hook.

Human Rights Watch has labeled Nadime’s death a war crime. But even as the de facto capital was in mourning, the Israeli PR machine was rolling.

Within a week Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was on CNN suggesting that not only was live-fire not the cause, but the youths may not even be dead. It was a deliberate act of misinformation to construct ambiguity surrounding the killings. An invention of Pallywood, a drama staged by the Palestinian people to wrangle the world to their side, he said. And sides are what matters now as the battle over sovereignty for the West Bank is being fought on the international stage with the BDS movement on one end, and Scarlett Johansson and Oren on the other. Figureheads like President Mahmoud Abbas add nothing on the ground. He’s also looking abroad with the aim of creating the norm that Palestine is a state already, albeit occupied. His legitimacy outside Palestine derives from his desire to turn something that was called the “Palestinian national cause” into an international lobbying effort that is completely disconnected from the reality on the ground.

When Abbas’s Fatah party held its 48th anniversary last year, it hearkened to the aesthetics of abandoned armed resistance. All of the photographs that rolled onto a screen behind classical Arabic musical performances looked like Getty stock photos from decades past. Yasser Arafat was pictured holding a gun, and nothing newer was shown because the Palestinian Authority has long checked out of a ground battle with Israel. To them, resistance is a legacy, and not the present.

And the protests that do take place are incapable of retracting Israel’s occupation. There are not enough people involved. The largest demonstrations in the West Bank over the past few years have been against the Palestinian government over things like gas prices. The époque of the two Intifadas is long over. And yet the Israeli army over the past year has scaled up Intifada-era policies. Last year the Israeli army killed over 40 Palestinian civilians, twice the number from the year before. But these demonstrations, which are more or less skirmishes between stone-throwing or unarmed youth and the strongest military in the Middle East, are not moments of political change as they had been in the past. They reflect the anger still coursing through the West Bank, with the youngest generation raised behind checkpoints erected during the second Intifada. The leading political party, Fatah, renouncing armed resistance before they hit puberty.

Last summer when three were killed in nearby Qalandia refugee camp in the onset of the return to direct negotiations with Israel, the whole of the West Bank mourned then too. But it all subsided within days. The dead were refugees, and somewhere in the back of urban Palestinian life, among those who work in offices, shop in malls, and don’t have the weekly or daily occurrence of soldiers running through their streets, those killings were but a fact of living outside of Area A, the portion of the West Bank under Palestinian security control.

To clarify, under the Oslo Accords, which are still the guiding lines on the books to determine the rules of everything in the West Bank from trade to security cooperation, Israeli soldiers do not have authority in Area A. Reality though is a more lawless picture. Whenever soldiers have an operation to enter Ramallah, they do. The frequency varies, in tune with overall arrest trends across the West Bank. Even offices are raided, like the media outlet Palestine TV’s just this past week when journalists were arrested.

Meanwhile, on the political front there is deadlock. Or, the thing that comes after deadlock. Although a unity government announced last week has the makings of a political catapult, to get the Palestinian past 25 years of negotiations that have now collapsed, it also offers nothing practically, because Hamas will not be given back the ministerial positions from which it was purged from in 2007.

Now 25 years after Oslo, the people of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are no closer to achieving freedom, even as Fatah has cinched control over the government under occupation. Nadime and Mohammed were buried in the villages they hailed from, outside of Ramallah. John Kerry has given up on his kitchen table approach. Netanyahu is refusing to discuss borders. And this week in Ramallah, nearly every shop is shuttered in a symbolic gesture to support hunger-striking detainees in their 46th day of grumbling stomach dissidence.

There are no political projects coming from the top. Every day in the West Bank someone somewhere is putting his or her body at risk or making a sacrifice, but these acts are all about scaling back aspects of the occupation. The feeling from the de facto capital is that there is no end in sight.

About Allison Deger

Allison Deger is the Assistant Editor of Mondoweiss.net. Follow her on twitter at @allissoncd.

Michael Oren either lied unashamedly, or is a totally ignorant minion, doing his good turn for the mother ship. I would guess it is all of the above. The truth is coming out, and the autopsy shows these poor kids were indeed brutally shot, by murderers wearing uniforms, and then lie like the criminals they are. Please note the autopsy was done under the observation of medical officers from other nations INCLUDING Israel.
So all the usual zio-BS about reports, and videos, being fabricated will not hold much water, still that would not stop them from trying.

“WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) led a bipartisan supermajority of 88 Senators in sending a letter to President Barack Obama expressing strong reservations about U.S. relations with the newly formed Palestinian unity government.

“The recent formation of a Palestinian Authority unity government supported by Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization that has never publicly accepted the Quartet principles, represents a serious setback to efforts to achieve peace,” the Senators wrote. “By its actions and inaction, Hamas has demonstrated it is not a partner for peace.”

Citing the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 and restrictions contained in the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2014, the Senators reminded the President of the legal prohibition on “foreign assistance to Hamas or any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member or over which Hamas has undue influence.””

For the complete list of the 88 numbskulls and the full letter, go here:

Brian, I thank you for showing me how Israel is making legislation (like building permit you mentioned in another story) and then uses them against what you call PalArabs, pretending that every thing is legal. There are parts of today’s Israel history that you Zionists do not want anybody to know, or Zionism would be banned just like its counterpart, Nazism. Please do not try to convince us that what Israel is doing is legal. We know who makes those laws and how they are implemented. Chaos is the air Israel breaths. No conflict in region, no windfall of “guilt reliving” aids from Germany and tax dollar from US. By the way, rubber bullets are “generally lethal” in close shots.

Just a cotton-picking minute! There’s no evidence yet to suggest or confirm that these two boys were shot by Israelis. All we know so far is that the Israeli soldiers were all using rubber bullets, which are not generally lethal. Indeed the investigation now points to the possibility that the boys were shot by other armed Palestinians who witnessed in that area. Please correct your story to reflect this. Thank you.

BrianEsker: Presumably this report is based on the testimony of Palestinian eyewitnesses. Does that count as “evidence” for you? And what evidence do you have to suggest that official IDF investigations have any credibility?

“Rubber bullets” is a misleading term. They do not consist of rubber. They are only COATED with a layer of rubber. Inside the coating they are made of metal, like other bullets. Ever since their use began evidence has accumulated that they are often lethal.

Shenfield: “…Rubber bullets” is a misleading term….” Well there’s no evidence so far to suggest that the lads were done in by rubber bullet. They are distinctly round and coated a certain way…the wounds would reflect that and there’s been nothing consistent with those kinds of bullets. Apparently it’s not conclusive, but there’s more of a suggestion that a .223 bullet was used, but weapons that fire those are also carried by Palestinians. So correct your own mind. And don’t heap blame on people when there isn’t conclusive evidence. I know, I know, that’s too much to ask here …

@ BrianEsker “Well there’s no evidence so far to suggest that the lads were done in by rubber bullet. They are distinctly round and coated a certain way…the wounds would reflect that and there’s been nothing consistent with those kinds of bullets”

Uh huh. You sure you want to go this way?

“Apparently it’s not conclusive, but there’s more of a suggestion that a .223 bullet was used, but weapons that fire those are also carried by Palestinians”

Oh of course…. But wait ….. What Palestinians on that day?
Where were they positioned? Why was the IDF not firing at them? Why is there no evidence of their presence? Why did the fire come from the IDF direction?

Last but not least, apart from some cretinous Israeli propagandists unproven opinion, why would the Palestinians shoot their own?

You maintain the pose of a reasonable open-minded person dealing with fanatics while steadfastly ignoring all the genuinely reasonable objections others make to your arguments and refusing to answer questions about what you would and would not consider “conclusive evidence”. Your pose is a lie.

They are distinctly round and coated a certain way…the wounds would reflect that and there’s been nothing consistent with those kinds of bullets.

Rubber bullets require a single round loaded into a magazine, which means a second shot cannot be fired without reloading. The CNN footage showed Israelis shooting multiple rounds in succession without reloading, which means they were live rounds.

Esker – The line of fire based on the bullet entry point was from the IDF positions. This was verified by independent videos. Maybe the IDF and the Palestinians were jointly firing at Palestinian protesters while standing next to each other. Surprised you haven’t tried that logic.

Cliff, to suggest that there is no evidence that Palestinian’s fired the live round is not 100% correct.

According to leaked information, the autopsy report will establish that Nawara was killed by live fire. And we would almost have to extrapolate that finding to Salemeh, whose body was not autopsied. (Interestingly, next to nothing has been said about the first guy shot, Azzeh, who survived and is doing well. There should be no question regarding the type of ammo causing his wounds. So I don’t know what’s going on with that.)

But the Nawara autopsy virtually takes any “rubber bullet” theory out of contention, at least as far as the fatalities go. I think it also takes Oren’s “doctored video” allegation out of contention.

So now the Israelis have no option but to spin this thing as a Palestinian-on-Palestinian killing, as Brian seems to be doing. It’s all they have. As outrageous and ridiculous as the allegation is, it has this one huge piece of video evidence supporting it: Nawara fell forward.

At the moment he was killed, Nawara was diddy-bopping through an area he must have known to be a live-fire zone. He wasn’t running, or dodging, or under any apparent stress. He was just walking. He knew that he was in a live-fire zone b/c Azzeh had just been shot there 44 minutes earlier, according to the time stamps on the CCTVs.

One would think that most people would not be so carefree walking through a live fire zone. So Nawara’s demeanor — like all of those around him — is odd in itself, but I don’t think it’s evidence of anything one way or the other necessarily. It’s just one of many oddities in these videos.

What is highly relevant is that Nawara was walking roughly N to S and he fell forward — toward the S, toward the IDF/IOF positions. This suggests he was shot through the back from the N. If that is true, it would be very damning evidence against the Palestinians.

First, it would mean the whole CNN “bullet-in-the-backpack” clip was play-acting BS.

Second, there were no IDF to the N, only Palestinians. (This is particularly evident in Yisrael Puterman’s video, which shows the whole area and how protestors were coming and going from the N, while IDF/IOF were deployed to the S.) A rifle shot from the N would virtually prove Nawara was shot by a Palestinian; one from the S would virtually prove it was the Israelis. Seems to me, it comes down to where the autopsy says the entry/exit wounds were.

This vital point will be resolved by the full autopsy report but the info may already be out. I believe the Harratz report by Gili Cohen and Jack Khoury had some details indicating massive damage to the heart and the exit wound, but I failed to cut/copy that report when it was published on Jun11 and now it’s firewalled. If anyone can get to it, it’s here:http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.598304

In any event, I question the wisdom of some who employ hyperbole like saying this was a “spray of bullets.” That is factual nonsense and is not helpful in determining who is responsible.

Assuming, as I think we almost must, that all of the injuries came from live fire, there were three rounds fired over a period of 2 hours, according to CCTV time stamps – Azzeh @ 13:00; Nawara @13:44, Salemeh @ 15:00.

The two closest rounds were 44 minutes apart. Hardly a “spray.” The “spray of bullets” meme distorts a very, very important point. These were kill-shots and they were expertly placed, particularly if they came from the parking lot 250 meters away. This is not about a couple of unlucky kids walking into a spray of automatic fire. It is about an execution, times 2.

I’m almost never sure what my point is, but in this case I think it’s that Nawara’s autopsy potentially seals the case against the IDF and turns Oren and the IDF mouthpieces into liars and laughing stock. OTOH if the report says that the exit hole was in Nawara’s chest, it will seal the case against the Palestinians and relegate them to that deepest of PR hell-holes – “killing their own” – along with bogeymen Saddam, Gaddafi, and Assad. Now that we know without doubt that it live fire, the direction from which it came means everything.

“What is highly relevant is that Nawara was walking roughly N to S and he fell forward — toward the S, toward the IDF/IOF positions. This suggests he was shot through the back from the N.”

Except that that’s not even remotely true. The direction a person falls when shot is not simply a function of “opposite the direction where the shooter was.” There are a whole host of issues involved, because the forces and physical stressors on such a body are many (both internal, such as the physiology of the body and external, such as the direction the bullet traveled, its mass and velocity at impact, but also the body’s center of gravity and direction of momentum), interact with each other in ways that are not always obvious and intuitive. Which is why forensic science is a job.

And my admittedly amateur opinion is that the video demonstrates that, when he is shot, his forward motion is slowed not increased. This suggests that he was shot from the front. The change in velocity from the bullet hitting from the front (if it was not enough to push him backwards) would have slowed his motion in that direction, as we see here. However, if he were shot from behind, we could expect that it would have increased his forward motion, because it would been added to the momentum he already had from walking in that direction.

Further, it appears to me that he falls foward simply because he was already walking in that direction, so his momentum would be in that direction, (his center of gravity would also have been forward of his body especially considering that he a pack on his back which has the tendency to require the wearer to lean forward more when walking.) Indeed, it looks like when he is hit in his core, his head and arms continue forward by intertia, which would carry his body in that direction as well. Thus, when he is shot, the impact of the bullet isn’t enough to fling him backwards like you might see in a movie or television show, but it does slow his forward motion and he falls forward because that’s the direction of his inertia.

What is highly relevant is that Nawara was walking roughly N to S and he fell forward — toward the S, toward the IDF/IOF positions. This suggests he was shot through the back from the N. If that is true, it would be very damning evidence against the Palestinians.

You’ve said this several times. I wish you would stop saying it. It is absolutely not true. People fall where their inertia takes them. He was walking toward the Israelis which means his inertia was toward the Israelis. What direction he fell in has absolutely nothing to do with the direction of the 5.56 bullet. The internet is filled with “stopping power” debates on this very round, namely that there is none.

See this vid from Sycamores. There is nearly zero imparted motion from a 5.56 round on a 150 lb. human.

Heck, per the video, it takes a 12ga. deer slug fired from a few feet away to even slightly move a 50 lb. mass in the direction of the slug travel. And that’s with the full energy of the impact translating into the mass (a vest). None of that happened in this case.

ritzl, thanks for the link to the link to the video of the sandbag being shot by the 2nd Amendment freaks.

Ha, ha, ha, I got such a laugh out if it. It absolutely exemplifies why they call those 2nd Amendment morons “hollow points.” The guy takes a 50 lb bag of sand, sets it on the ground, wraps it w/ bullet-proof protection, and then shoots it. I am 100% certain there will be no Nobel Prize awarded for this study.

If you notice, he shoots the protected bag at or below the center of gravity. And surprise, surprise – the bag doesn’t fall over – proving??? Well, proving that if you shoot a bag of sand at or below the center of gravity with an M193 round nothing happens. And, now, just how do we extrapolate from this brilliant sandbag demonstration to the young man, Nawara, being shot in Beitunia?

If you want to rely on the type of demonstration these hollow points carried out to prove your point, you would have set the 50 lb bag of sand on a table that was 4 feet high. Then you would have to remove the two rear legs of the table to simulate a bipedal target with it’s center of gravity 4 feet off the ground, which is what Mr. Nawara was. Then you would have shoot the bag in the upper 1/3, well above the center of gravity, comparable to where Mr. Nawara was shot. And I’ll let you figure out for yourself which way the sandbag would fall.

We know the round that hit Nawara was moving at 2500-2700 ft/sec when it hit him b/c that is the velocity at which the IDF standard M193 round yaws and fragments when it hits a target, and the leaked info from the autopsy says they found fragments in his heart. His heart was destroyed – literally, unlike the way the hearts of all of us who have watched the CCTV versions of the event have been destroyed figuratively at the thought of such premeditated cruelty. It is a small bullet, but a high velocity one, and the kinetic energy of an object is a function of its velocity squared, which is 2700 x 2700. So from a pure Newtonian point of view I have difficulty with your assertion “What direction he fell in has absolutely nothing to do with the direction of the 5.56 bullet.”

But the point I was making was that it is not correct and not fair at this point of our knowledge to assert that there is no evidence that could be used to support an alternative explanation, and the funny fall is one such piece of evidence. I am not saying that Nawara’s odd fall proves anything, but it is evidence that will be interpreted more than one way by an objective person. Your position that the fall is irrelevant is biased thinking from someone who has already jumped to his conclusion as to who the guilty party is. If the autopsy report says the entry wound was in the chest, then your analysis of the fall will obviously be a closer approximation of its relevance than mine.

As I indicated above, my personal suspicion is that these two youngsters were executed by IDF/IOF. But there is a lot of information still out there that could flip that suspicion, or solidify it into a conclusion.

My main concern is that this incident not fade away without a proper investigation; I only wish more people here at MW shared that concern.

“If you want to rely on the type of demonstration these hollow points carried out to prove your point, you would have set the 50 lb bag of sand on a table that was 4 feet high. Then you would have to remove the two rear legs of the table to simulate a bipedal target with it’s center of gravity 4 feet off the ground, which is what Mr. Nawara was. Then you would have shoot the bag in the upper 1/3, well above the center of gravity, comparable to where Mr. Nawara was shot. And I’ll let you figure out for yourself which way the sandbag would fall.”

No, none of that is valid, at all, because he was more than 50 lbs, was moving forward so his body had kinetic energy and momentum at the time of his murder and his center of mass was probably only slightly lower than the impact point. None of which points to the fact that falling forward is indicative of being shot in the back.

“All we know so far is that the Israeli soldiers were all using rubber bullets, which are not generally lethal.”

~~~~~~

Wow…Really!!! Your IDF zionist pale hasbara attempts are only backfiring in your face…your handlers are getting desperate ….and will use moles like you to attempt to divert…and possibly attempt a little damage control to your apartheid Israel & its IDF killers.

Let me see here…how about if the Palestinians start using “rubber bullets” on Israeli children…after all they “are not generally lethal”…!!!

Yea …let the Palestinians use the same type of “rubber bullets” that your IDF killers are using…to shoot little Palestinian boys & girls…aiming for the head…eyes..chest…abdomen…etc…and with deadly results!!!

The list of those who didn’t sign is more interesting: Feinstein, Carper, Paul, Harkin, Imhofe, Reid, Corker, Leahy, Sanders, Kaine, Rockefeller, Baldwin. Some powerful senators in this group and probably a variety of reasons for not going along with this AIPAC special.

The numbskulls are regular Americans, advancing or maintaining their career, climbing the ladder held out to us all, buying more things, bigger, better, more cutting edge tech toys, good car, and, putting money away for their kids to stay in, or go to, a good university, etc. Right?

As the entry of Israeli soldiers into Area A violates the Oslo Accords, does that give the PA a right under international law to arrest intruding soldiers and expel them from Area A? (I am not asking whether this would be practicable?)

Both my senators signed the f……. letter. Rubio and Nelson. They could care less; their lack of response to constituent complaints or questions is really insulting. Rubio eventually sends a form response via email, sometimes; Nelson totally ignores my complaints or queries, then, next thing I know he sends an email telling me all the great things he does for us here in Florida. Foreign policy is never mentioned at all.

According to an official statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, “Israel sees the PA as responsible for the well-being of the kidnapped,” adding that Netanyahu spoke with the families of the three missing teens and pledged he would do all in his power to locate them.

“I know you are suffering,” Netanyahu told the families. “Be strong, the State of Israel will make every effort for your sons, and I promise to remain in contact with you.”

Netanyahu ordered government ministers not to give interviews on the matter.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro has also been briefed that one of the missing teens reportedly holds U.S. citizenship.

An official from the U.S. State Department said, “We hope the three teens will be returned to their families safely.”

On Friday evening, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni informally met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. At the meeting, Livni asked Kerry to approach Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in order to bring about the release of the teens.

Livni is in London for the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, an international conference on war crimes and violence against women in conflict areas.

Netanyahu additionally spoke with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, and told him that Abbas is responsible for the well-being of the missing teens.

“What has happened on the ground since the inclusion of Hamas in the Palestinian government is detrimental. This is the result of letting in a murderous terror organization,” Netanyahu said. ”

“Adnan Dmeiri said the PA was not responsible for the safety of settlers and had no way to prevent the possible kidnapping of the teenagers.

He said the PA “is used to accusations from (Benjamin) Netanyahu’s arbitrary government, which does not want to commit to any agreement and wants to damage all relations with Palestinians.”

Dmeiri said the PA had no information about the missing settlers, and noted that Gush Etzion, the settlement from which the teenagers are believed to have disappeared, “is under Israeli security control.”

He added: “And the PA is not responsible for the security of settlers.”

Dmeiri also said he was unaware of any cooperation with Israel in the search for the settlers.

Earlier Friday, Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel held the PA responsible for the three missing settlers’ well-being. ”

Ever notice that Israelis, “settlers” or not, don’t kidnap Palestinians? Whether the PA approves of these kidnappings or not, they have little or no control over it, regardless of under whose jurisdiction the kidnappers live. But, the mindset of little to no regard for human life is all too prevalent among many in the arab world, and the Palestinians. I don’t expect our leading light humanitarians, Mr. Weiss or Ms. Robbins, to write an article actually condemning this kidnapping, regardless of how it turns out. May G-d help save these young boys, who aren’t “guilty” regardless of where they live, or go to school. If the mobsters who frequent this website think so, then, by contrast, the boys who got killed outside of Ofer prison throwing rocks or whatnot (they weren’t waiting for a ride home) “deserve” what they got.? Follow your own sickening line of reasoning. If some Palestinians have declared war on any Jewish person, then who amongst them should complain when their own loved ones, in a violent clash, get seriously injured, or worse. And don’t assume it was Israeli gunfire that killed these teens, though it’s certainly possible. It’ll be a long time before the final evidence is in. Scream all you want, I’m logging out.

well for starters that just is not true. Israelis kidnap palestinians all the time. they just use their military to do it.

while i don’t condone kidnapping.
first there is no evidence that palestinians kidnapped these teens. secondly what are 3 teens who are illegally in the west bank backpacking around it any way? I’m sorry but they being part and parcel to a brutal occupation shouldn’t just be wandering around willynilly. I’m sorry but your complaint is childish. if they hadn’t been in the west bank illegally they probably wouldn’t have gone missing.

“Whether the PA approves of these kidnappings or not, they have little or no control over it, regardless of under whose jurisdiction the kidnappers live”

What kidnappers. There are only accusations thus far. Accusations are not evidence. Kids, steal and burn a car, go AWOL because they know they’ve done the wrong thing … quite possible … easy to blame the Palestinians

“But, the mindset of little to no regard for human life is all too prevalent among many in the arab world, and the Palestinians”

‘a’rab world? Why lower case Pajero?

“May G-d help save these young boys, who aren’t “guilty” regardless of where they live, or go to school. “

Sorry to spoil your rant. They’re Israelis. Israeli citizens, be they Jewish or non-Jewish, are prohibited from settling or even being in Occupied Territories.

“If the mobsters who frequent this website…”

Name one mobster who frequents this website … thx

“Follow your own sickening line of reasoning”

Actually, it’s YOUR sickening line of reasoning based on your little strawman

‘And don’t assume it was Israeli gunfire that killed these teens, though it’s certainly possible. It’ll be a long time before the final evidence is in.’

The evidence has been in for a long while now. From the very top down, Israel has lied since those boys took their last fragile breath.

Here’s a question that I would dearly love an answer to. Why are there so many folks all over television, in print, and here toeing the official line out of Israel? Do you write to your reps in protest and ask them to tell the truth? Do you ask them to stop their barbarism? Do you want peace? Do you ever criticize the government of Israel? I am asking because doing these things is the hallmark of a ‘democracy’! In the meantime, thank goodness for folks like those in B’tselem, etc.

What do you want? What do you think about the Occupation? How do you feel about the Nakba? Have you ever personally helped one of your elderly survivors of the Holocaust? Do you have Palestinian friends?

You’re out of your mind. The Zionists prisons are full of kidnapped Palestinians, as not one of the Palestians who are alleged to have committed a “crime” every gets a legitimate trial. They’re all kidnapped.

“the mindset of little to no regard for human life is all too prevalent among many in the arab world, and the Palestinians.”

LMAO. Compared to the cult of murder and death that is Zionism, the Palestinians are practically Jains.

“who aren’t ‘guilty’ regardless of where they live, or go to school.”

Nonsense. The 19 year old, unless his is mentally incompetent, has freely chosen to invade Palestine and occupy its land by living in these “settlements”, thus making him a legitimate military target. Further, the two 16 year olds may not be guilty by their mere presence (as that presence is a crime attributable to their parents) but their attempted exercise of dominion over the Paletinians’ land certainly makes them participants in the land theft. So they are certainly criminals, so should suffer for thier crimes to some extent. Now, given the fact that the Israelis have prevented the institution of normal Palestinian government over all of the land of Palestine, while I do not favor ad hoc courts which would impose punishment such as summary imprisonnment on these 16 year olds, that would be more just than simply letting them and the other settlers exist free in Palestine.

No, the boys who were murdered by the Zionist pigs outside fo the Zionist concentration camp had every right to be in their land and defend it from the invading Zionists. Just as the French Resistance did not deserve to be killed by the German Nazis for defending their homeland from the barbaric Nazi invaders, so too the Palestinian Resistance does not deserve to be killed by the Judeo-fascists for defending Palestine from the barbaric Zionist invaders.

“And don’t assume it was Israeli gunfire…”

Typically demonic Zionist reasoning: We didn’t murder those boys and if we did, they deserved it. Right.

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